Correct, I have a fluke 87 and a high and low clamp for that I use for auto work. I just want a second meter to keep with my electrical tool pouch for electrical and hvac work around the house. That is why I was leaning towards an "all in one" type unit with clamp and leads. I think that uni t one will work good for the price.
This may not be true of all brands, but every all-in-one meter (that I have looked at), with the clamp built in, has only one digit past the decimal point for resolution, when using the leads. This may be enough for some use cases, but it ***** for reading battery voltage. This is why I keep a separate AC/DC clamp meter (an older Fluke 36). I do not even keep any leads with it, leaving all of the other functions to the 87.
The uni-t goes to three decimal places past the point on the 2 amp setting, pretty useful if your looking for a parasitic drain above 40mA on a vehicle
After many years with a 260, my first digital meter was a Simpson 360. It seemed high tech at the time, but now compared to a well preserved 260 with the mirrored scale the 360 is about as wrong as LED candles on your birthday cake.
I don't know the Uni-T so I am not saying it isn't accurate, but one should be careful not to confuse resolution (how many digits of display a meter will show) with its accuracy. In other words, if it reads 1.345 amps +/- .1 amp then the last two digits are not significant.
Yep, I know, all DC clamps suffer from "drift" too.
)I wondered how that was done on small equipment. Our stuff was so big we just bumped the motors before we put the coupling or drive belts on.
The easiest way to know correct phase rotation is to keep your phasing / coloring of conductors consistent for line 1, line 2 and line 3 and then a simple double check with a phase rotation meter before startup to ensure correct rotation.
